Festival contact

​For further festival information, contact us at info@splitthisrock.org or 202-787-5210.

On March 23, 2008, participants of the Split This Rock Poetry Festival walked silently from George Washington University to Lafayette Park in front of the White House. Once there, every participant stepped up to the mic and recited or read one 12-word line of poetry about peace that became the beautiful cento you see below.

I know you are reading this poem listening for something, torn between

bitterness and hope

Turning back once again to the task you cannot refuse.

Let’s dance! Let’s dance! Give peace a chance!

Bless them, with the forgiveness only the dead can afford to offer.
In an age without heroes I just want to be a man.
I think I could turn and go and live with the animals.

We draw from a deep well of sorrow and shame—my country and I.
The erosion of voice is the build-up of war …

I don’t know Baghdad
But I do know Albany
And it’s burning.

Oh wasteful war—we could have been learning and listening together!
Who needs oil? The sun ain’t going nowhere.

We need one single person not to fight. Won’t you be that one?
I can no longer watch as you eat the shadows of others.
Carrying your harp of sighs you breathe out the music of mourning.
After the war’s funeral let us not suffer renovated marginalization ever again.

Connection with other
important as autonomy
Alone, not alone in the war zone.

We no longer whisper sweet nothings
War cries make poor pillow talk.
Words of peace pierce the wounded air here, like sweet bandages.

War is not the answer. Talking it over is the answer.
A world of peace and social justice, protection of the planet.

Let us walk through
inviolable borders
like rain finding its
destined continent.

If you dare, come now with me,
Fearless, confident and free.
Turn your wrath on war when its winds rise. Spit and let the flags fight.

Love is what it is …
The calming stream that warms us …

The bombs pound holes in the night. Night after night.
This is our watch just for having been born.

they speak of the art of war
but arts
draw their light from the soul’s well
warfare
dries up the soul

Maybe you shook the hot bone dice.
Promise me not to go silent all of a sudden.

Hung one, young America died and continue to die
Terrorists occupy THE WHITE HOUSE

ahhh peace
ahhh end this war now
ahhh peace
bring them home

Our country
Our shock
Our awe
Our shame
Our recompense
Our future

Draw me a future I won’t be ashamed to leave my son.

Why, in America, are the only choices I’m allowed always between lesser evils?
What will you do, America, when the dormant poet begins to speak?

Carry the wounded world like a dying child in our arms forever, giving sorrow to words.
Melt down the vessel full that served as mixing pot of grief.
Can we bring down heaven, plant it here where they love?

The invasion of boots is everyday
Occupation is violence
Operation self-determination is salvation—spring.

You’ve ruined lives like centaurs tearing up trees with world-wasting cries …
“Both, I will have them both!” declared this true-blue American.
This fifth Easter Sunday drops yellow down my throat—what must I do?

Mercy, Mercy
“America can’t leave ‘em go like this.”

Under the peace hungry eyes of the world,
Cherry blossoms witness the fifth anniversary of the Iraqi war.

Politics of death and taxes bring me here to grieve.

Blood on Blood—red matter fragments! What follows? Let it be—luminous, free!
A painter says red, white + blue. No more purple hearts for you.
So instead of war, we might have had much improvisational festivity.

Dichoso el árbol que es apenas sensitive
Y más la piedra dura …

This empirical wonderland is spinning off its evil axis
and I am pissed off.

Listen—the murmur
of 100 million stars
too distant to fear
any fighting.

Baghdad, once called the given garden—
a desert—stolen—water, medicine, citizen.

On a day of unreportable sadnesses we must reteach a thing its loveliness.
Go ahead open your hand ...
The lone night bird sings to the tortured between screams.

If I keep from imposing on people, they become themselves.
Peace is within reach, over the horizon just beyond war.

The best lack all conviction while the worst
are full of passionate intensity.

Where the princes are principled and the poets empowered, there is the land where peace is possible!
Let there be peace on Earth, the peace that was and is meant to be.
Let there be peace on Earth and let it begin with me.

And the narrowest hinge of my hand parts to score all machinery.

The children are waiting to be heard, listen to their silenced cries.
We inherit ashes and transform these into the rich compost of poetic possibility.
Let America be America again.

All thinking people oppose terrorism both domestic and international …
The winding Potomac lazily drifts by the Pentagon, journeying towards the sea.

America, let the words of the poets ring in your head.
No sick winter shall blot out the stars of our defiance.

Heroes want hugs, but send bombs to buildings to excuse their absences.
We are borne with dreams in our hearts, looking for better days ahead.

I’ve never been to war, except inside.
Please stop war. We want peace and we will not fight.
Poetry made me brave. It tells me we can build our peace.

Enough, I say, enough.
5 years. How long until even the gods are ashamed.